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Domain Name Registration

We will register a unique domain name for your company. Please help us with some suggestions, the name has to be brief and must convey the meaning of your business.

Register Domain Names for your:

• Business name
• Trading name
• Products and services
• Trademarks or patents
• Customer newsletter

Why have more than one Domain Name? To give your products and services online identities; to make an impression and stand out in the crowd; to make it easier for your customers to find you; because it makes business sense.

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Web Hosting Plans

One size does not fit all. Fortunately, you can choose from our different hosting packages, each designed for individual needs. Every package is loaded with high reliability features and support, and they're all priced affordably.

What about support? Web hosting support should be an important factor of your web hosting placement decision. Unlike other hosting companies, we are available to you via email or telephone to provide fast answers and solve problems immediately.

The Starter Plan
Provides enough storage and bandwidth for those who like to test the waters. Ideal for novice users or simple web sites. Get started, it's simple, affordable and secure.

The Business
Provides enough storage and bandwidth for more complex information websites. Ideal for small busines or large information web sites.

The Expert Plan
We understand what's necessary to succeed in ecommerce and have developed a range of products, partnerships and educational information to help you with every step of the process. Orange Snowman provides the reliability, ease-of-use, security and performance you'll need to create and manage a successful online store. This plan includes Search Engine Optimization, E-Commerce by Miva Merchant, web site analytics and web site security.

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E-Commerce

Don't ignore the up-and-coming, booming Hispanic market. Translating your web site to Spanish will open the door to a new world of opportunities.


Miva Merchant
shopping cart license
$100.00
reg. $899

With the amazing growth of the Internet, it seems that everyone has a Web site these days. From the smallest Mom-and-Pop businesses to industry giants, the Internet allows everyone to compete. And yet, setting up a professional business Web site is not so easy. How you establish your Internet presence determines if your e-business succeeds or fails.
We believe you should treat your e-business like a traditional brick-and-mortar business. Have a solid business plan and budget. Develop a marketing plan to attract and retain customers. Keep track of your orders, ship items and perform customer service. Recognize that setting up and running a business web site costs money. Understand that you will need the services mentioned below to succeed. Orange Snowman has all the tools into place and we have taken out the mystery to start your own online business!

Web site design
When it comes to eCommerce (that is, buying and selling goods or services online), having a product to sell is just the first step in the process. Building a successful online business will require a lot of consideration and planning, as well as creativity and technical skill. We're Here To Help. Just as in a physical "brick and mortar" store, building an online store involves combining many separate elements into a productive whole:

• Researching your target market
• Choosing a credit card processing company
• Setting up an internet merchant account
• Building an attractive, professional-looking storefront
• Marketing your online store to attract customers

We are experienced in this process, and we're here to guide you every step of the way... we succeed when you succeed!

Secure server connection
There is a lot of concern about security on the Internet. To make sure your customer's transactions are safe, follow established conventions in Internet security, which means using a secure server for Online Charge and Online Check transactions. A secure server runs software that establishes a secure connection with your customer's Internet browser using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology to encrypt transmitted information. You know you are on a secure server when your browser shows https:// on the browser address bar and a lock icon on the status bar. You can get your own secure certificate or use our server wide secure server to host your web site.

Merchant Account
A Merchant Account is a bank account that allows you to accept credit cards and electronic checks from your customers. Most established businesses already have a Merchant Account but you need to check with your bank to make sure it can handle Internet transactions. If you do not have a Merchant Account, Orange Snowman has teamed up with the Humboldt Bank and you can apply via the Merchant Account Express Application. You do not have to host with us to apply for a Merchant Account. Anybody can apply. Apply here!

Miva Merchant is a dynamic browser based storefront development and management system that allows merchants to create multiple online stores from anywhere in the world where there is internet access.

Miva Merchant has a complete set of wizards to simplify the process of building your store. The browser based administration interface provides access to an array of more sophisticated tools to maintain your catalog. Upsell merchandising and order fulfillment are included. And Miva's modular architecture enables you with deep-down customization for your storefront.

• Unlimited Products & Categories
• Real-time Credit Card Processing
• Store Creation and Setup Wizards
• Upsale based on basket contents
• Related Products
• Quickbooks export
• Email notification of orders
• Multiple Stores in a single domain
• SSL integration for ordering and reporting
• Database driven, modular architecture
• API-based add-in modules

Affiliate Program
Build your own affiliate network and attract new customers to your storefront! You save time and money by managing your affiliate program at the same time you manage your store. This new features makes it easy to control commissions you pay to affiliates for both sales and click-thrus. Both you and your affiliates have access to payout reports and you can even choose to have your affiliates added automatically or with administrative approval.

Inventory Tracking
Now you can track inventory levels for all the products in your store. Your customers will know exactly when a product is in stock or out of stock. This powerful new feature even sends email notifications about low and sold out items. You can manage inventory levels and notices for your entire store or for specific items. It's easy to administer and you'll eliminate orders for products that are no longer in stock.

Simple Administration
It's never been easier to set up and administer your storefront. Now one wizard manages the complete storefront configuration and displays progress to completion so you know exactly where you are at each step of the way. You can revisit completed steps at any time and quickly switch between advanced and simple mode administrative interfaces.

Attribute Templates
You'll save lots of time with the new attribute template feature. Now you can assign similar attributes to multiple products and easily change attributes globally by updating the template. Product attributes can still be modified without affecting the template. Plus, you can assign attribute templates in the Product Import.

Site Traffic and Sales Statistics
Now you'll know exactly how many customers have visited your store and how much they have spent. This useful new feature makes it easy to track your store traffic and make smarter inventory and promotional decisions.

Quick Selection
Now you can calculate shipping costs as a percentage of the total order.

Store Management
Miva Merchant comes complete with a set of wizards to simplify the process of building your store. Then, the browser-based administration interface provides access to an array of more sophisticated tools to maintain your catalog and inventory, manage accounts, create comprehensive promotional campaigns, handle order fulfillment responsibilities, and generate detailed sales and web site traffic reports.

Account Management
Whether you are running a single store, or a "shopping mall", Miva Merchant allows you to have complete management control. You can create a store manager with full authority and multiple user accounts to handle the normal day-to-day operations of running your store. Also, customer accounts can be set up to provide frequent shopper programs, discounted pricing and special product availability.

Catalog Management
Create categories, products, and attributes within Miva Merchant using wizards, the Miva Merchant administration interface, or the product import utility. Use the sorting capability to quickly organize your products for display. Create detailed product descriptions using text and HTML and attributes can be assigned to products to allow you to identify your products' characteristics more accurately to your customers.

Merchandising
Merchandising is key to success of all stores and Miva Merchant has the capability to implement a variety of programs to increase your sales. With Miva Merchant you can associate complimentary products to give shoppers the opportunity to purchase others that are similar . You can also create an up sale process when shoppers meet pre-defined criteria such as purchasing specific products, or exceeding specified dollar amounts.

Pricing groups can be used in combination with select shopper availability groups to qualify them for discounts on any or all products in the store.

Order Fulfillment
Processing credit card payments is easy with Miva Merchant's pre-configured payment processing solutions from industry leaders. Miva Merchant also configures multiple sales tax methods and provides your customers with multiple shipping options. Checking order status is also simple with our instant order email confirmations that are sent to both the merchant and customer.

Miva Merchant is bundled with interfaces to the following list of payment gateways and, supports over 40 others:

• Authorize.Net Payment Services v3.0
• E-Commerce Exchange/QuickCommerce 3.0
• Payment Gateway
• Moneris e-SELECT Payment Service
• GlobalCommerce Payment Gateway
• CyberSource ICSv2 Payment Services
• Cardservice/LinkPoint Payment Gateway
• Paradata Payment Service
• Verisign Payflow Link
• Verisign Payflow Pro (PaymentNet)

Through Miva Merchant's modular architecture, many other
payment processors can be integrated to a Miva Merchant
storefront.

Modular Architecture
Miva Merchant is specifically designed so developers and aftermarket vendors can implement their own customized modules around a common API. Once a module is developed, push-button registration automatically integrates it into the main Miva
Merchant system. Modules can be developed for the following sub-systems:

• Fulfillment
• User Interface
• Shipping
• Payment
• Currency
• Sales Tax
• Batch Reporting
• Import / Export
• Buyer Traffic Reporting
• Intercept System Functions
  

Existing Site Integration
E-merchants who have sites in HTML can hyperlink directly into a Miva Merchant e-catalog. Key e-catalog functions such as product lookup, category presentation, shopping basket, and order forms can be accessed as components of existing HTML-based web

Security
All sensitive data can be encrypted with SSL prior to transmission. This includes the customer ordering process and processing of orders. Multiple layers of login permissions give a centralized manager the ability to grant store-level permissions to different developers and merchants.

Documentation and Support
Context-sensitive help is available for each key field in the administrative interface within Miva Merchant. In addition, online documentation is available on Miva's web site. Support for Miva products is available through Miva's Incident Reporting System and user group forums.

Site Administrator Friendly
Miva Merchant requires no daily management.

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Search Engine Optimization & Submission

There is not magic bullet that will make your appear in the first page of search results. The basic elements of a successful campaign are: focus, patience and intelligence. We provide measurable results, not promises. We do not force you into long term contracts, so you can fire us if you feel we are not doing a good job, but you won't. Take a look at the following examples (click the bold type to see results):

• $400 Search Engine Optimization & Submission
  This service encompasses everything from consultation, keyword research, copy writing, analyzing the the current optimization of your web site, your competition, submitting to search engines and finally adding a counter to measure day to day results (about 8 hrs).
  
• $50+ Monthly Search Engine Submission
  We can add links and add ranking to your site by forming alliances with other large web sites. This will make your web site more popular and will greatly increase traffic and relevance.
  
• $50+ per account, Management Internet advertising in Google or Overture
  Cost-per-click search engine placement and management in major engines such as Google and Yahoo.

Elements of Successful Internet Marketing Campaign:

Focus: most search engines will respond best to focused content. And that focus will bring you higher positions. For example, a company that sells software: If you have one master site that talks about 5 different products, the page loses focus. Sure, they may get high relevance for "software" but so do 56,485 other sites on the 'net.

Patience: even our advanced URL submission can do nothing about the time it takes for search engines to actually list submitted sites. The search engines have a lot to do these days and many of the big ones seem to be having trouble keeping up with the explosive growth on the Internet. Engines will say thanks for submitting and then promptly forget your URL and you can end up never being listed. A basic rule to follow is that an average submission will take 6-9 weeks to be posted.

Intelligence: knowing what your potential customers will be typing into the search engines is the most important key to getting the proper traffic. Going for general terms like "software" or "free" can be pretty useless. Doing some basic market research now applies to search engine placement as well as other media outlets.

Advertising: search engines have been around for a long time without making any money. But lately they have found a way. Google for example, lists in their top result web sites that have the most links pointing to them. The traditional meta-tags and descriptions have been abandoned. The bottom line is that now portals and directories occupied the place of most relevant web sites. If a web site wants to take the top results, they most work for the links or buy advertising. The good news, buying ads in the web is still a bargain. We can manage and design your next campaign, while also submitting to the free search engines.

Main Search Engines:

Google
Google has a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for those searching the web. The crawler-based service provides both comprehensive coverage of the web along with great relevancy. It's highly recommended as a first stop in your hunt for whatever you are looking for. In addition to Google's unpaid editorial results, the company also operates its own advertising programs. The cost-per-click AdWords program places ads on Google as well as some of Google's partners. Similarly, Google is also a provider of unpaid editorial results to some other search engines. For a list of major partnerships, see the Search Providers Chart.

Yahoo
Launched in 1994, Yahoo is the web's oldest "directory," a place where human editors organize web sites into categories. However, in October 2002, Yahoo made a giant shift to crawler-based listings for its main results. These came from Google until February 2004. Now, Yahoo uses its own search technology. The Yahoo Directory still survives. You'll notice "category" links below some of the sites lists in response to a keyword search. When offered, these will take you to a list of web sites that have been reviewed and approved by a human editor. It's also possible to do a pure search of just the human-compiled Yahoo Directory, which is how the old or "classic" Yahoo used to work. To do this, search from the Yahoo Directory home page, as opposed to the regular Yahoo.com home page. Then you'll get both directory category links ("Related Directory Categories") and "Directory Results," which are the top web site matches drawn from all categories of the Yahoo Directory. Sites pay a fee to be included in the Yahoo Directory's commercial listings, though they must meet editor approval before being accepted. Non-commercial content is accepted for free. Yahoo's content acquisition program also offers paid inclusion, where sites can also pay to be included in Yahoo's crawler-based results. This doesn't guarantee ranking, Yahoo promises. The CAP program also bring in content from non-profit organizations for free. Like Google, Yahoo sells paid placement advertising links that appear on its own site and which are distributed to others. These are sold through Overture. Yahoo purchased Overture in a company Yahoo purchased in October 2003.

Ask Jeeves
http://www.askjeeves.com
Ask Jeeves initially gained fame in 1998 and 1999 as being the "natural language" search engine that let you search by asking questions and responded with what seemed to be the right answer to everything. In reality, technology wasn't what made Ask Jeeves perform so well. Behind the scenes, the company at one point had about 100 editors who monitored search logs. They then went out onto the web and located what seemed to be the best sites to match the most popular queries. Today, Ask Jeeves instead depends on crawler-based technology to provide results to its users. These results come from the Teoma search engine that it owns, which is described below. Ask Jeeves is doing innovative things with invisible tabs and with what it calls Smart Search. We think the future of search will be this much smarter approach to delivering up more than just web pages. It makes Ask Jeeves a well-worth a visit by anyone looking for information.

AllTheWeb.com
http://www.alltheweb.com
Powered by Yahoo, you may find AllTheWeb a lighter, more customizable and pleasant "pure search" experience than you get at Yahoo itself. The focus is on web search, but news, picture, video, MP3 and FTP search are also offered. AllTheWeb.com was previously owned by a company called FAST and used as a showcase for that company's web search technology. That's why you sometimes may sometimes hear AllTheWeb.com also referred to as FAST or FAST Search. However, the search engine was purchased by search provider Overture (see below) in late April 2003, then later become Yahoo's property when Yahoo bought Overture. It no longer has a connection with FAST.

AOL Search
AOL Search provides users with editorial listings that come Google's crawler-based index. Indeed, the same search on Google and AOL Search will come up with very similar matches. So, why would you use AOL Search? Primarily because you are an AOL user. The "internal" version of AOL Search provides links to content only available within the AOL online service. In this way, you can search AOL and the entire web at the same time. The "external" version lacks these links. Why wouldn't you use AOL Search? If you like Google, many of Google's features such as "cached" pages are not offered by AOL Search.

HotBot
http://www.hotbot.com
HotBot provides easy access to the web's three major crawler-based search engines: Yahoo, Google and Teoma. Unlike a meta search engine, it cannot blend the results from all of these crawlers together. Nevertheless, it's a fast, easy way to get different web search "opinions" in one place. HotBot's "choose a search engine" interface was introduced in December 2002. However, HotBot has a long history as a search brand before this date.HotBot debuted in May 1996, it gained a strong following among serious searchers for the quality and comprehensiveness of its crawler-based results, which were provided by Inktomi, at the time. It also caught the attention of experienced web users and techies, especially for the unusual colors and interface it continues to sport today.

Teoma
http://www.teoma.com
Teoma is a crawler-based search engine owned by Ask Jeeves. It has a smaller index of the web than its rival crawler-competitors Google and Yahoo. However, being large doesn't make much of a difference when it comes to popular queries, and Teoma's won praise for its relevancy since it appeared in 2000. Some people also like its "Refine" feature, which offers suggested topics to explore after you do a search. The "Resources" section of results is also unique, pointing users to page that specifically serve as link resources about various topics. Teoma was purchased by Ask Jeeves in September 2001 and also provides some results to that web site.

AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com
AltaVista opened in December 1995 and for several years was the "Google" of its day, in terms of providing relevant results and having a loyal group of users that loved the service. Today, AltaVista is once again focused on search. Results come from Yahoo, and tabs above the search box let you go beyond web search to find images, MP3/Audio, Video, human category listings and news results. If you want a lighter-feel than Yahoo but to still have Yahoo's results, AltaVista is worth considering.

Gigablast
http://www.gigablast.com
Compared to Google, Yahoo or even Teoma, Gigablast has a tiny index of the web. However, the service is constantly gaining new and interesting features. Give it a whirl, if you want to try something experimental yet dependable. Read more about Gigablast in this recent interview from our SearchDay newsletter.

LookSmart
http://www.looksmart.com
LookSmart is primarily a human-compiled directory of web sites. It gathers its listings in two ways. Commercial sites pay to be listed in its commercial categories, making the service very much like an electronic "Yellow Pages." However, volunteer editors at the LookSmart-owned Zeal directory also catalog sites into non-commercial categories for free. Though Zeal is a separate web site, its listings are integrated into LookSmart's results.

Lycos
http://www.lycos.com
Lycos is one of the oldest search engines on the web, launched in 1994. It ceased crawling the web for its own listings in April 1999 and instead provides access to human-powered results from. LookSmart for popular queries and crawler-based results from Yahoo for others. "Fast Forward" lets you see search results in one side of your screen and the actual pages listed in another. Relevant categories of human-compiled information from the Open Directory appear at the bottom of the search results page.

MSN Search
http://search.msn.com
Formerly one of Search Engine Watch's top choices, MSN Search is definitely one to watch. The service was previously powered by LookSmart results and gained top marks for having its own team of editors that monitored the most popular searches being performed to hand-pick sites believed to be the most relevant. The system worked well. Today, MSN Search is in transition. It provides access to Yahoo listings but not as much functionality in terms of other types of searches that you'll find at Yahoo itself. However, MSN is developing its own crawler-based technology and planning other changes that should revitalize the service in later 2004.

Open Directory
http://dmoz.org/
The Open Directory uses volunteer editors to catalog the web. Formerly known as NewHoo, it was launched in June 1998. It was acquired by AOL Time Warner-owned Netscape in November 1998, and the company pledged that anyone would be able to use information from the directory through an open license arrangement.

While you can search at the Open Directory site itself, this is not recommended. The site has no "backup" results that kick in should there not be a match in the human-compiled database. In addition, the ranking of sites during keyword searching is poor, while alphabetical ordering is used when you choose to "browse" categories by topic.

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Web Analytics

Urchin......$15/month
Only if you host your web site with us

Urchin is a web analytics software package designed to analyze traffic for web sites and provide highly accurate, useful, easy-to-understand reports on-demand.

Improve Your Site - Increase Revenue

How are visitors getting to your site? How are they using your site? Are visitors converting into customers? Which marketing efforts are paying off? Urchin answers all of these questions and many more with its detailed unique visitor reports. Urchin sets the bar with the most advanced visitor tracking methods in the industry. Urchin's reports allow you to optimize your web site and save money by increasing the effectiveness of your marketing dollars.

The Screen Resolutions Report Urchin is able to capture several aspects of the visitor's environment. The corresponding reports are grouped under the Client Parameters section of the Urchin reporting interface. In this example, it's instructive for the web designer of this site to see there are a significant number of visitors with only 800x600 resolution, which is common to 15" monitors. The Unique Visitors Report Urchin uses a 3-part, first-party cookie to positively identify visitors and track each visit to the site, all without sacrificing privacy or anonymity.

The Visitor Sessions Report With Urchin you can see most charts and graphs in either pie, line, or bar graph-type views, and can easily copy/paste the graphs into common Office applications like Powerpoint and Word. The Search Engines Report Like many Urchin reports, the Search Engines Report allows you to drill-down into a particular item and find out more about it. In this case, clicking on the "www.google.com" entry reveals all of the actual search terms used on Google to find this site.

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Spanish Translations

Don't ignore the up-and-coming, booming Hispanic market. Translating your web site to Spanish will open the door to a new world of opportunities.

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E-mail Campaigns

Member Acquisition - Opt-in Form Builder:

• Collect demographic and personal interest information from the people who visit your web site
• Create a sharp-looking template that collects this data.
• Target your email campaigns more effectively and build a stronger relationship with your customers and prospects.
  

Mailing List Management:

• Upload your customer data quickly into your secure account.
• Put your data through our rigorous hygiene process weeding out any duplicates or improperly formatted email addresses.
• Keep your data safe! Our physical database servers are locked in a secure facility that monitors them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Plus all our servers are protected by top-of-the-line firewall systems from the industry leader, Cisco Systems(TM).
  

E-mail Campaign Management:

• Preview your email before you send it out, make changes, and even set up a seed list for a test mailing to your friends or coworkers.
• Campaign Reporting:
  Get access to the results of your email campaign in real-time directly from your browser!
• Day or night, weekend or weekday, you can view all statistics associated with your campaigns whenever you like.
• See what's working and what's not so you send out only the most effective emails to your customers and prospects.